Thursday, November 3, 2016

Don't Be So Predictable

The myriad of misery that we are confronted with on a daily basis is one very large tangled mess. Every morning before my feet hit the floor, I check my phone and read through all the news tweets that have pushed through to my phone overnight. And, it has been a long time since I was greeted with good news. A bit later in the morning I click onto Facebook, and the news gets even worse. How? Scrolling through my newsfeed, I see one predictable reaction after the other. If only the solution to all of this incessant madness were as easy to obtain as your status update was to post.

To know me, is to know that I do enjoy Social Media. However, the events of the first week of July, this Summer, had me disturbed to the point where words escaped me. I went silent on Social Media. And when I finally did post something, it was a picture. Then a day or so later I posted the prayer of St. Francis. The persistent onslaught of anguish and agony in this world is not something that can be boiled down into a meme. These issues deserve our reflection and serious consideration. It simply drives me insane that we are so flippant, so absolutely glib about issues that seem to have us completely off course.

The world we live in gets smaller and smaller. We learn about international issues as soon as they occur. On the evening of July 21, as my husband and I left NYC, headed to upstate NY, story in Turkey began to unfold. There were tons of moving pieces and a lot we did not know. As I was the passenger and had the great "fortune" of NYC Friday commuter traffic, I began to look into the issue a bit deeper. By the time we got to our destination, we had a better handle on what was happening and where it might be headed. We didn't draw any immediate conclusions. It would have been easy to be outraged that an army would do this to its leader when he was away. Given my husbands families history with Turkey, we could have easily cheered them on, hoping for the destruction of Turkey. But you see Turkey is important for countless reasons. There is nothing simple when it comes to Turkey.

We need to stop and grapple. But we don't. We are so hell-bent on proving our position right that we fail to dig beyond the surface. I the thrust of Olympic excitement, as I was scrolling through Twitter, I was stupefied, we had managed to politicize an Olympic Event. Ginny Thrasher, on day one of the Summer Olympics, captured gold in the 10-meter air rifle event. She not only won the event, she set an Olympic Record. But, suddenly all of the NRA sympathizers were giddy and propping her up to fortify their gun positions. Yet, based on her recent interviews - she believes that the controversy surrounding gun control in our country distract from her sport. Days later Gabby Douglas underwent intense scrutiny for failing to place her hand over heart during the medal ceremony as the U.S National anthem played. Have we only one lens through which we see the world?

As this election has droned on, I hear one thing that all sides of the aisle agree on...everyone is sick of politics. Yet, everyday I see countless political posts and they seem to grow as we draw closer to November 8. And the sad thing is, half of these posts are riddled with inaccuracies. I don't care if you are "with her" or you want "to make America great again" - take a moment to ensure your posting is accurate. And don't be so predictable. If the way you see the world, or your lens hasn't changed in 20 years, you are not a thinker. You are in a rut.